Abia State Governor, Dr Alex Otti has charged his Executive Council Members to develop a robust and sustainable execution template that will drive the attainment of Abia State’s strategic governance targets for the current fiscal year.
Governor Otti gave the charge while declaring open the First Executive Council Retreat for 2025 organized for the enlarged State Exco Members.
The The two-day retreat themed; “Sustaining Momentum: Accelerating Execution”, is designed as a leadership exposition, interactive session, and agenda-setting forum aimed at identifying operational bottlenecks and proffering solutions to ensure effective governance.
The Governor who spoke on the Topic; “Eyes On The Ball“, emphasized the need for periodic assessment and conscious application of past achievements to improve governance and institutional efficiency.
He highlighted that the retreat has been packaged “to bring certain operational outcomes to the fore and ultimately guide us to the new ways of overcoming the obstacles that stand in the way of the path of effective execution”.
“What we need to do in the course of this retreat is to see where and how our approach to the execution has deviated to the trajectory we seek to travel.
“The agenda for us all in this exercise shall be to collectively develop a robust execution template that will drive the attainment of our strategic governance target for the current fiscal year.
“This retreat has been set up to underline how we shall run as a government in the new year. 2025 will be a crucial year for the State so we are required to exceed whatever we achieved in the past.”, the Gov stated.
Governor Otti charged the enlarged Executive Council Members to approach their assignments with renewed urgency, bearing in mind the high expectations of the people.
He reiterated his administration’s commitment to raising governance standards far beyond those of past administrations and emphasized that every sector of Abia’s economic and social service ecosystem is crucial to the state’s development
“This administration is not going to be judged by the mediocre standards of the past administration because we were elected to raise the bar and raise it very very high“, Gov Otti emphasized.
He encouraged participants to use the retreat as an opportunity to assess deviations from the set trajectory and realign strategies for improved execution and called for open and constructive engagement among attendees.
Earlier, in a welcome address, the Secretary to the State Government, Prof. Kenneth Kalu, described the retreat as an opportunity for participants to reflect and strategize on achieving the goals of the present administration.
In their reactions, some participants, including the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Information, Sir Chris Onwuegbu, and his counterpart from the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, Lady Ugonma Jimonu, expressed optimism that the retreat would align top Government officials with Governor Otti’s vision for a new Abia.
They noted that the retreat would help minimize conflicts between political appointees and bureaucrats while equipping them with a clearer understanding of policy implementation and program execution.
Stephen Orosaye
The Retreat featured workshop sessions, Feedback sessions and a paper presentation titled, “Enhancing Public Service Through Efficiency, Accountability, Transparency and Impactful Reforms”, by a former Head of Service of the Federation, Mr. Stephen Oronsaye.
